New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

In 1866 Henry Bergh had founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, partly in response to the creation in Great Britain of the RSPCA some years earlier.

In 1874 he and other officers of the society were approached by a church worker named Etta Angell Wheeler regarding the mistreatment of a child called Mary Ellen McCormack, who was being beaten daily by her foster mother.

After the trial and conviction in April 1874 of the foster mother for assault and battery, Etta Wheeler is said to have approached Bergh and asked him why there should not be a society to protect children just as there was one to prevent cruelty to animals.

[2] Bergh and his ASPCA legal counsel Elbridge Thomas Gerry approached the Quaker philanthropist John D. Wright to gain support for the creation of a child protection society.

[2] A notable feature of the NYSPCC's initial activities was Gerry's view that the proper role of the Society was as a law enforcement agency rather than a provider of social services,[8] with its main focus on child rescue.

[8] In the late 1870s Gerry persuaded the police department to allow Society agents (nicknamed "Gerrymen") to keep children away from "immoral" activities such as the theater, amusement parks, penny arcades and poor and immigrant neighborhoods.

Anti-Gerry campaign groups formed, and the mayor of New York was persuaded to limit Gerry's power and set out proper regulation of child stage performers.